Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst is just the third Republican since Reconstruction to hold the seat in Texas. First elected to the post in 2002, he is in now in his third term, having served longer than all but two of his predecessors.

In July 2011, he announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Kay Bailey ...

As state officials prepare to meet with the man who has become the face of the increasingly politicized spat between Texas and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Tribune's Jim Malewitzhas an exhaustive background story on the seeds of the conflict.

On this week's edition of WFAA-TV's Inside Texas Politics, I talked with host Jason Whitely and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy about state Sen. Ken Paxton's ethics filings, the grand jury investigation into Gov. Rick Perry's attempt to dislodge Travis Co. DA Rosemary Lehmberg before and after her DUI conviction, and more.

David Dewhurst’s predicament — abandoned first by most Republican primary voters and then by one of the bellwethers of the Texas big business establishment — reveals how the Texas GOP has changed since he first became lieutenant governor in 2003.

Republican state Sen. Dan Patrick has said that if elected lieutenant governor, he might not name any senators from the other party to lead committees. It would be a bold move, but not unprecedented. He might want to see what happened when a Democrat — Bob Bullock — tried the same thing.

Politics is full of turnarounds, double-crosses and strategic misunderstandings. But a big business group's decision to switch sides in the race for lieutenant governor was a rare exhibition of political hardball. Texans for Lawsuit Reform left David Dewhurst in a runoff after supporting him in the primary and threw its support to Dan Patrick.

The grand jury investigation into Rick Perry's veto of funding for the Public Integrity Unit has drawn new national attention to the outgoing Texas governor who is weighing a return to the presidential sweepstakes.

State Sen. Dan Patrick has credited his success to grassroots support. But his momentum has also been built on lessons learned navigating the old-school politics of Harris County, where he has aggressively courted a small number of influential conservatives.

It will be months before the state can begin implementing a law approved last year that prescribes drug testing for certain unemployment insurance benefit applicants. The delay has some Texas lawmakers and business leaders frustrated, but federal officials say the rule-making process is long.

A Tesla Model S. The California-based electric automaker had considered Texas for its $5 billion lithium-ion battery factory. The company is also hoping to sell cars in Texas but does not have required franchise dealerships, as state law requires.

Executives with the electric carmaker Tesla Motors met on Wednesday with government officials in San Antonio, according to the San Antonio Express-News, a development sure to spur further talk about Texas' odds of landing the company's $5 billion battery plant.

The spill of as much as 168,000 gallons of fuel oil into Galveston Bay has crews working hard to avoid lasting impacts on a crucial shipping channel as well as an ecologically sensitive area of the Texas coast.

What was originally planned as the first head-to-head encounter of the Republican runoff race for lite guv will now be a solo appearance by David Dewhurst. His opponent, Dan Patrick, announced late Monday afternoon that he was withdrawing from the debate.

A runoff against a populist conservative is nothing new for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. But he has to figure out how to win one. Two years ago, the foe was Ted Cruz, who prevailed and won a seat in the U.S. Senate. Now it's Dan Patrick, a Houston state senator who was for Dewhurst in that 2012 race and is against him in this year's showdown.

A week after the primary election, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples reflect on their failed bids for lieutenant governor, weigh in on David Dewhurst, Dan Patrick and the May runoff, and talk about what the future holds for them.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Dante Chinni of the American Communities Project at American University makes the argument that if Texas flips blue, it could do so in a hurry. And not just because of the state's growing Hispanic population.

Jerry Patterson and Todd Staples offered their takes on Tuesday on how the May runoff between their former lieutenant governor primary opponents — Dan Patrick and incumbent David Dewhurst — might turn out. Patterson said he could "almost guarantee" that Dewhurst stays in the race. Staples said he saw a "difficult road ahead" for the incumbent.